The Last Great Dispossession—Climate Justice and the Commons: A Lecture with Vishwas Satgar

Join Artspace New Haven and artistic duo Aeron Bergman & Alejandra Salinas for a lecture with Dr. Vishwas Satgar. In “The Last Great Dispossession—Climate Justice and the Commons,” Dr. Satgar explores how the eco-cidal logic of capitalism has not only enclosed the commons in the heartlands and peripheries of capitalism, over 500 years, through private property relations but simultaneously unleashed the destruction of ecological relations. Accumulation through eco-cide expresses itself through soil depletion, water peak, biodiversity loss, widespread pollution, endless warfare, precarity and the worsening climate crisis. The fossil fuel rupture in the earth system is about the last great dispossession of our planetary commonwealth. Poisoning the bio-chemistry of the planet could well end everything. Frontline struggles for climate justice are our only chance to gridlock and reverse eco-cidal capitalism, before it is too late. This lecture will explore climate justice exits and emancipatory futures to defend the planetary commons.

“The Last Great Dispossession—Climate Justice and the Commons: A Lecture with Vishwas Satgar” is part of the series ““The Commons: Towards Reclaiming Collective Power,” conceptualized by Bergman & Salinas as attendant works within their exhibition Against the General Good/ Contra el Bien General, on view September 17–December 3, 2022. Please register for this virtual program.

Dr. Vishwas Satgar is an Associate Professor of International Relations, editor of the Democratic Marxism series and principal investigator for Emancipatory Futures Studies in the Anthropocene, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. He is a veteran activist and co-founder of the South African Food Sovereignty Campaign and the Climate Justice Charter Movement.

Click here to join the event via Zoom